Tag: organizing

I have been working with American Express to redo a room for a reader.

I’ve been busy redecorating a bedroom for Kathryn and her husband, Finn. They live in Oak Park with their two kids, and they asked for some help with finishing their bedroom. The space was an attic once upon a time, but previous homeowners had remodeled it. Poorly. They longed to make it feel more put together, but their kids came first and the bedroom kept getting pushed back. I showed the space to you, in progress, last week. Now the room is finished though, and I love the way it turned out! I think Kathryn and Finn are pretty darn happy too.

American Express had provided a $1500 budget, and I used their Prepaid Card to help keep me on track. It was great because I could login to check my balance anytime I wasn’t sure, which was so helpful while decorating quickly and on a tight budget.

Kathryn and I swapped the Prepaid Card back and forth a few times as I would send her to pick up things like painting supplies and the wardrobe, and then I took it back to get the smaller decorative details. I was even able to pull a little cash out to pay for the end table I found on Craigslist.

Lighting was my biggest concern when it came to budget. The room is large, but it only has one window. And that window? It directly faces their neighbor’s bathroom. Not exactly a room with a view.

I wanted to be sure to provide plenty of light, but nice lamps tend to be expensive. It’s fairly easy to find inexpensive furniture that still looks good, but lamps are different for some reason. Luckily, I found some clear glass lamps on sale. They had a clean, simple shape with good proportions, and the added detail of the blue cord gives them some interest.

Originally, I thought I might put one lamp on the gateleg table and put the floor lamp I picked up on the other side, but I thought the room needed symmetrical lamps to balance the mismatched tables. The floor lamp ended up on the other side of the room, next to Kathryn’s pair of Eames chairs. A small task lamp that the homeowners already had was perfect on top of their dressers.

I hung art and photos that the homeowners already had in black frames, along with the print at the bottom that I created for them.

The doors to the kids’ bedrooms were curtained off. Perhaps Kathryn and Finn will add a sliding barn door in the future, but for now the curtains are a good solution. Such a simple thing to do, but it made a huge difference. Instead of feeling like an open area between two smaller rooms, it feels like a bedroom in its own right. The freestanding closet that we added helps too.

There were already four dressers in the room, but two were used as bedside tables and two were hidden beneath pipe and drape along the slanted end of the room. Pushing all four of them together made them look more deliberate in the space, and it was fun to decorate the top.

I loved working on a room in someone else’s home, and I hope to do more work for others in the future. Thanks, American Express for making this one possible. And thank you, Kathryn and Finn, for letting me takeover a room in your home!

* I’ll answer questions about where everything came from in the comments, but you can also check my Pinterest board for the room. Nearly everything (and more) is on there!

Remember Kathryn’s bedroom? She and I have been joking that I actually made it look better in pictures than it did in real life. This is what Kathryn had to say about her space when she applied to have it redone.

Our bedroom is a disaster. Our upstairs is open plan, no doors, few walls and all four of us are up there. Which was great during the toddler/co-sleeping stage, but now that we’re rapidly approaching tween-dom its just not working. And it’s the last place we have to really fix, we have an addition on our someday/eventually list […] but that someday is farther and farther off. We really need some help figuring out an attractive and practical solution for this crazy space. And did I mention there are no closets? We’d love for this space to feel cozy and relaxing instead of constantly trying to block out all the things we need to fix as we try to fall asleep.

I had Kathryn and her husband, Finn, paint the room and add white trim. I chose Enamelware from the Martha Stewart paint line for the walls and ceiling, but had them color match it to Benjamin Moore paint. Gone are the decals. “But I loved those,” I hear you saying. I know, me too. But we are going for something different, and I think you’ll love the new design too.

I’ve addressed the lack of closets with a freestanding wardrobe, which combined with the zigzag rug that they already had, will make the bedroom feel more enclosed. More like its own room, rather than one big open space between the two kids’ rooms. Adding the wardrobe also allowed us to do away with the curtains along the pitched side of the room that concealed clothes hanging from pipe rods. There were already two dressers behind those curtains and another two matching dressers bedside, but now all four have been lined up along that sloped wall. With a little styling they’re going to look fantastic.

Kathryn and I would both love to add a sliding barn door (in yellow, no less) to the entryway of her little boy’s room. If you’re on Pinterest at all, you’ve seen this photo from Southern Living. Heck, you’ve probably pinned this photo.

Unfortunately, the hardware alone is pricey, and we’ve already spent half of our budget just on the wardrobe. I knew the closet would be pricey, and I think the result is worth it (both in terms of form and function), but it kills me that I can’t give her that awesome barn door. I think she and her husband, Finn, and still trying to figure out a way to make it work though, so maybe it can be something that they add at a later date. (psst: Check out Housetweaking for some DIY barn door inspiration.)

Speaking of budget, American Express has provided us with $1500 for the room, and I’ve been using their new prepaid card to keep track of expenses. As I mentioned, the closet took up half of our funds right away. Paint and trim took another big chunk. By the time it came to choosing the fun stuff (i.e. everything else), we were down to about $550. I’ve been obsessively logging in to my account to check the balance on the card to make sure we’re still on track.

We were also able to repurpose a gateleg table that had belonged to Kathryn’s grandmother. It’s now standing in as a very nice bedside table.

I’ve been gathering things for the room (sheets, lighting, an additional bedside table), but there’s still a lot to do, and not a whole lot left now on the American Express card. The room needs more bedding, curtains, lighting, knobs on the closet doors, art, and all of the pretty decorative touches that finish off a space. I’ve also tasked Kathryn with sewing a matching slipcover for the foot of her bed. I’m not giving it all away (I want the finished room to be a surprise to Kathryn and her family too!), but you can check out my Pinterest board for the room to see what I’ve had my eye on.

I think it’s all going to come together quickly, and I’ll be able to share the finished room with you next week!

I am working with American Express to redo a room for a reader.

When I asked if anyone in the Chicagoland area needed decorating help, hundreds of local (and some hopeful not-so-local) readers applied. I read each submission, narrowed the pool of applicants down to a smaller number, and ultimately selected Kathryn and her bedroom. American Express has provided a $1500 budget, and I’ll be using the new American Express Prepaid Card to help keep me on track.

Kathryn and her husband, Finn, live in Oak Park with their two kids. Their home’s three bedrooms are all on the second floor, which was originally an unfinished attic. Like many homes in the area, ours included, the space had been expanded decades ago with a dormer. The quality of the renovation though was… lacking. Kathryn and Finn would love to remodel the space eventually, but until they could afford it, they aren’t sure what to do with their bedroom. How much do you sink into a space, knowing you’ll be changing it down the line? How little do you do, knowing you’ll still be living with it for the next five years or so? Kathryn had also entered her home office for the project, but we both agreed that we should try to make her bedroom the best it could be.

Taken individually, there are some really great elements in the room. The black and white zigzag rug, Eames LCW chairs, and painted white floors are cute. Kathryn added vinyl decals on the wall to look like a wallpaper pattern (smart), and she sewed a slipcover for the headboard to give her bed a different look (also smart). From certain angles, the room isn’t bad. If you step back though, you see that the bedroom doesn’t quite work as a whole and there are some space planning issues to be addressed.

For example, clothes are hung on a low rod behind curtains along the pitched side of the room. More curtains serve to partition the stairs. We’ll be addressing both of those issues with a large, freestanding wardrobe. Kathryn and Finn will be putting in a lot of work to help get their room ready, including picking up and assembling the wardrobe, so the Prepaid Card will come in handy. I’ll be able to send them out with it and a shopping list, rather than trying to coordinate a delivery and dealing with reimbursement.

I’ll be doing my share of shopping for the bedroom too, of course. I’ll be on the lookout for two new nightstands, some lighting, new bedding, and a host of other things for the space. It will be a challenge to redo such a large room, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the Card transactions to make sure I’m on track.

I’ll meet again with Kathryn soon to finalize a design plan, and to choose colors so that she and Finn can get started with painting. We’ll be working (quickly!) toward showing you the finished space at the end of November, with an update or two along the way. I’m so excited about this! I can’t wait to show you how it all turns out.